Sofia Samodelkina

Sofia Vladimirovna Samodelkina (; born 18 February 2007) is a Russian-Kazakhstani figure skater who currently competes for Kazakhstan. She is the 2025 Kazakhstan national champion, the 2025 NHK Trophy silver medalist, a four-time ISU Challenger Series medalist, and the 2025 World University Games bronze medalist. She represented Kazakhstan at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

As a junior skater, competing for Russia, she is the 2021 JGP Slovenia silver medalist, the 2021 JGP Russia bronze medalist, and the 2022 Russian Junior silver medalist.

Samodelkina is the ninth woman to land a quadruple jump and the fifteenth to land a triple Axel jump in international competition. She is the second woman after Alexandra Trusova who has landed all quadruple jumps except quad Axel in practice. She is the first woman to attempt a quad loop in competition, but the jump was not ratified due to under-rotation. She has landed ratified triple axels, quad salchows, and quad toes in international competition.

She is the first woman from Kazakhstan to win a senior Grand Prix medal.

Samodelkina received Kazakhstani citizenship in the summer of 2023.

Following her top ten finish at the 2026 Winter Olympics, the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan bought Samodelkina a one-bedroom apartment in Astana.

In addition to figure skating, she enjoys drawing as a hobby.

Samodelkina placed fourth at the 2020 Russian Junior Championships and 2021 Russian Junior Championships.

Skating for Russia 2021–22 season: International junior debut

Samodelkina made her junior international debut at the 2021 JGP Russia held in Krasnoyarsk in mid-September. She fell on an underrotated triple Axel jump in the short program, missing her combination as a result, ending up sixth in that segment. In the free skate, she placed second behind Sofia Akateva, landing a quadruple Salchow with positive GOE and becoming the ninth woman in history to land a quad. She also landed a quad Salchow-double toe loop combination and quad Lutz in the program, although called a quarter short, taking the bronze medal overall.

2022–2023 season

Prior to the season, it was announced that Samodelkina had left her longtime coach Sergei Davydov and would instead be coached by Svetlana Sokolovskaya.

As Russia remained banned from international competition during the 2022-2023 season, Samodelkina opted to compete on the Russian Grand Prix series (a series of all-Russian competitions in the same format as the international Grand Prix series) Samodelkina was assigned to the second and fifth stages of the series.

At the second stage of the Russian Grand Prix series, Samodelkina scored 63.66 points in the short program and ranked in fifth place. She placed second in the free skate and second overall, winning the silver medal. At the fifth stage of the Russian Grand Prix, Samodelkina won both segments of the competition, winning the gold medal 4.07 points ahead of Olympic silver medalist Alexandra Trusova.

Competing at the 2023 Russian Championships, Samodelkina placed eighth in the short program and eleventh in the free skate, dropping to eleventh place overall. She went on to compete at the 2023 Channel One Trophy, where she was randomly drawn to compete on Kamila Valieva's team. She would individually place sixth at the event and her team would finish second overall. Samodelkina would then close her season by finishing eleventh at the 2023 Russian Grand Prix Final.

Throughout the season, Samodelkina underwent a significant growth spurt that would impact the timing of her jumps. While in Kazakhstan, she was coached by Elmira Turganova, who was also head of the National Skating Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Samodelkina would later reveal that it had been Sokolovskaya's decision to end their working relationship shortly after she had decided to represent Kazakhstan.

She was officially released by the Russian Figure Skating Federation in May 2024.

Samodelkina later spoke out on some of the negative attention she has received for deciding to represent Kazakhstan by both Russian media and the mental impact it had on her, "When I skated in Russia and was younger, the media didn’t pay as much attention as they did after my change of citizenship. But, of course, I saw both good and bad. People write what they think. This is their opinion, their decision to write or not write... Of course, when you read something bad about yourself, no matter how much you say you don’t pay attention to it, it’s somewhat untrue; it still somehow stays in your mind. But I have my close and dear ones who always tell me the truth, whether it’s bitter or sweet. I listen to them and try to improve."

Skating for Kazakhstan 2024–25 season: First national title, Four Continents and World Championships debut

In July 2024, Samodelkina competed at the Kazakhstan Summer Championships, her first competition since March 2023. She ranked second place in the short program, but won the free skate, winning the gold medal overall.

At the beginning of September, Samodelkina announced that she had left Evgeni Plushenko and was now training in Kazakhstan full-time. Later that month, Samodelkina competed on the Junior Grand Prix circuit for the first time in three years at the 2024 JGP Turkey, where she finished in fourth place. Continuing to compete on the 2024–25 ISU Challenger Series, Samodelkina won the silver medal at the 2024 Tallinn Trophy.

In late February, Samodelkina finished fourth at the 2025 Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China. One week later, she competed at the 2025 Four Continents Championships in Seoul, South Korea, finishing in seventh place.

2025–26 season: Milano Cortina Olympics, Grand Prix silver

In late July, it was announced that Samodelkina had moved to Los Angeles, California, United States and that Rafael Arutyunyan had become her head coach. The following month, she started the season by competing at the 2025 CS Cranberry Cup International, where she won the silver medal behind Isabeau Levito. Two months later, she won the silver medal at the 2025 NHK Trophy behind Kaori Sakamoto. In doing so, she became the first woman from Kazakhstan to win a Grand Prix medal.

In December, Samodelkina won the bronze medal at the 2025 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb. The following month, she competed at the 2026 Four Continents Championships in Beijing, China, finishing in ninth place overall.

A month following the Olympics, Sofia competed at the 2026 World Championships in Prague, finishing in twelfth place overall after placing twelfth in both the short program and the free skate. She struggled with a few of her jumping passes, confirming an ongoing knee injury later on with the media press; "My injury still worries me, and that why I wasn't able to train well. I was training for 1-1.5 hours a day because I was really caring for my knee. Now I'm going to go home and hope to recover my knee and my body. I just want to take a rest".

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